Scott Thornton and Mike Ricci (18, far right) celebrate Ricci's goal late in the second period for the Sharks to narrow the gap to 2-1 as the Sharks host the Los Angeles Kings at the San Jose Arena on Tuesday night. Photo by Jeff Chiu / The Chronicle. less

Scott Thornton and Mike Ricci (18, far right) celebrate Ricci's goal late in the second period for the Sharks to narrow the gap to 2-1 as the Sharks host the Los Angeles Kings at the San Jose Arena on Tuesday ... more

Photo: Jeff Chiu

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The Sharks' Marco Sturm tries to skate past Ziggy Palffy's stick in the first period as the Sharks' host the Los Angeles Kings at the San Jose Arena on Tuesday night. Photo by Jeff Chiu / The Chronicle.

The Sharks' Marco Sturm tries to skate past Ziggy Palffy's stick in the first period as the Sharks' host the Los Angeles Kings at the San Jose Arena on Tuesday night. Photo by Jeff Chiu / The Chronicle.

Photo: Jeff Chiu

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Sharks' Frustrations at an End / Power-play drought, winless streak are over

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The Sharks scored a power-play goal and they won a game. Will miracles ever cease?

Mike Ricci's second goal of the night -- a throw-himself-at-the-net deflection that eluded Felix Potvin 1:53 into overtime -- enabled the Sharks to beat Los Angeles 3-2 at San Jose Arena last night for just their second victory in 15 games.

"Sometimes it's better for us dumb guys not to think," said Ricci, summing up his game-winner.

There would have been no overtime had it not been for Alexander Korolyuk converting a power-play goal at 16:53 of the third period. By scoring on their fifth power play of the night, the Sharks snapped a drought of 37 straight failures spanning eight games.

San Jose, which broke a six-game winless streak, triumphed for a franchise- high 36th time to move to within one point of Edmonton and Vancouver and four ahead of both the Kings and Phoenix Coyotes in the Western Conference standings. Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov tied a club record with his 30th win as he stopped 17 of 19 shots.

"It was a great, great emotional win for us, and that's just what we needed, " Sharks assistant coach Rich Preston said. "Not only was it a big win, but the guys came back and stuck with it."

The winning sequence was set up when Teemu Selanne fed Jeff Norton with a nifty between-the-legs pass. Norton skated below the right circle to feed Ricci, who had gained a step on back-checking Kings forward Luc Robitaille.

"He ends up there about 10 times a game without his helmet so I knew he'd eventually be there," Norton cracked. "Teemu made a great pass. That's what great players do, they see everything on the ice."

Ricci's overtime heroics were set up thanks to Korolyuk's persistence on the power play. First he won a battle for puck control in the corner, and then he made his way to the front of the net to be in position for a rebound. That's exactly what Patrick Marleau's shot from the right point produced, as Potvin could only get his blocker on the forward's drive. Korolyuk scored on a second swipe attempt in close.

Adam Deadmarsh's rough of Selanne at 16:16 put the Sharks on the power play,

which was getting dangerously close to the team record of 41 straight failures established in October of 1997.

San Jose's power play came into the game ranked 27th at 13.3 percent. Only also-rans Chicago, Tampa Bay and Minnesota had lower power-play percentages. Other than the franchise-low 11.8-percent conversation rate in 1995, the Sharks have never had as low a percentage as their current figure.

"The power play is one area we really have to improve upon," said Selanne, who assisted on each of San Jose's final two goals. "It's going to be very important for us. Right now it's embarrassing."

After extending a streak to seven consecutive scoreless periods of regulation play against each other, the Sharks and Kings broke loose in the middle session for a combined three goals. Unfortunately for the hosts, two were scored by Los Angeles, which held a one-goal edge after 40 minutes.

The Kings broke on top when Robitaille completed a 2-on-1 with his 36th goal of the season at 5:03 of the second period, following Marcus Ragnarsson's neutral-zone turnover. The Kings built a 2-0 lead on the strength of Jozef Stumpel's power-play goal at 18:04. Needing 27 seconds to convert on their fourth man-advantage chance of the night, the Kings snapped San Jose's recent stretch of 15 straight kills spanning four games.

The Sharks finally solved Potvin, who in a span of four games against San Jose had stopped 89 of 90 shots and held the Sharks scoreless for a combined 3: 26:40.

Ricci scored the first of his two goals in rather innocent fashion. He broke into the Los Angeles zone along the right boards, slowed as he entered the circle and appeared to look to pass before snapping a half-speed wrister from the dot that beat Potvin over the goalie's left glove at 18:53.